Elementis 1: The Heir to the Stone (16 page)

Menace and Cortex joined Spec and Goldheart at the bar, "Do you think he’ll ever understand what this all means?" Menace said to the group.

"He might understand, Menace, whether or not he can save us is the question we need to ask," Spectrum said, watching the door close as Jonas left the room.

*

Standing in line with Spectrum, Menace, Cortex and Goldheart, Jonas wore a matte-black armoured flight suit with a metallic-silver trim. The landing bay they were in was filled with row upon row of the long, sharp-hulled dekapod fighters, all coated with the shining burgundy colouring of the Cytherean Guard.

Dog-Star strolled across the front of their line, staring at the five soldiers as if they were a brick wall. He stopped in front of Cortex and scanned systematically into each of their eyes, saying, "As a soldier of the Guard you must be as skilled in the air as you are on the ground. Jonas, you can't do any worse than yesterday but the rest of you are experts in all fields. If any of you finish worse than the Spider I'll have you cleaning and picking the crumbs out of the juniors uniforms for the rest of your visit. The instructions for each challenge will be on your display screens. Choose your fighter colours and begin the training."

The protectors saluted Dog-Star and rushed across the shining bay floor to five waiting dekapods. Jonas nodded towards the hardened soldier, he would have smiled but somehow didn't think he'd get one in return. Jonas followed the others and boarded his fighter. As he took his seat he picked up a flight helmet that sat in the cockpit. Turning it around he saw the others had had a helmet battle signed with "Spider" across the front. He put the helmet on; he didn't care; it's what he was. The fact that the others thought they were being clever bothered him but being labelled as "the Spider" was the least of his worries at the moment.

At least the dekapod controls were familiar to him, even if he'd not yet had the chance to fly one of these properly. The data-screen in front of him activated, overlaying Jonas's windshield. "Test Communications" flashed up on the screen.

Menace tapped at her control panel, programming a colour change as the pigment of her fighters surface followed her command with an instant paint job turning from burgundy to a suit matching blue, "Menace set!" she said into the communications.

Spectrum's fighter turned white, "Spectrum set!"

Goldheart's sprayed across with gold, "Goldheart set!"

Cortex's changed to green, "Cortex set and ready!"

Jonas settled on a metallic-silver paint to match his flight suit, "Jonas set!" he said, with confidence. "And I hope none of you take it personally when you lose out there," he said.

Menace's voice came back through his radio, "You just let your flying do the talking, Spider."

Jonas smiled and boostered out of the docks flying out above the lush valley beneath the cliff of the academy.

Cortex pressed a button on his dash excluding Jonas from his transmission. "I knew we should have left him on Kroyto!"

"None of us like it, Lucas," said Spectrum.

"The kid doesn’t help himself Spec," Goldheart added.

"The least we can do is show him how to fly," said Menace.

Their dekapods hovered up and blasted out of the landing dock. The fighters beeped onto Jonas's radar as they approached behind him. "Test 1" wrote itself across Jonas's data-screen, and a robotic voice spoke into his helmet as the words typed out.

"Test 1 Nerve… You must race against your opponents through the winding cliffs of Hydar Canyon, from the great rock of Hydar to the waterfall of Arasti. The challenge is a test of a pilot's ability towards risk analysis. If you pull up above the cliff line, you are disqualified. If you crash or eject, you are disqualified. Beware the lightning storm. The lower you fly, the safer you are. Good luck."
Jonas's screen flashed up with a points system, behind which the fast approaching canyon came into view.

Winner = 5 points
Second = 3 points
Third = 1 point

The text disappeared and the great rock of Hydar towered hundreds of feet into the air above Jonas at the entrance to the canyon. Rain began to pour, streaming straight off the front and sides of Jonas's windshield. Thick bolts of lightning flashed up ahead, thundering down from the dark clouds above, cracking through the canyon valley below.

Cortex's green fighter pulled up alongside Jonas. "Don't go too fast, Spider, you never know how tight the next turn is… Oh, and don’t get yourself killed. The king wouldn’t like us very much for that," he said.

Jonas nodded across to Cortex. "Thanks for the concern, Lucas. I can look after myself."

Neck and neck the fighters screamed past the rock of Hydar and between the straights of the canyon walls. A timer beeped on and counted up from 00:00:00 in the bottom-left corner of Jonas's data-screen. The fighters eased around a gentle right bend, Cortex took the inside and the early lead. Spectrum was right behind him, inches from his wings. Jonas sat in third with Menace and Goldheart tied at the back.

Rocky sediment flew past the pilots' windows at colossal speed. The canyon narrowed up ahead. All five fighters jostled for position. Goldheart fell back into last as the others squeezed closer together and sped through a tight alleyway. A sharp left turn came out of nowhere, a sharp left again, a sharp right, and the fighters shifted under and over a canyon bridge. Jonas didn't let his concentration stray into thinking what the other fighters were doing; he just flew as fast as he felt he could into every turn. Spectrum was right behind him and Cortex pulled away into a solid lead.

What looked like a dead end came up to the windshield in a blink. Jonas couldn't see which way the turn was. He slowed and stayed in the middle of the canyon. Spectrum rocketed past on his left and
Cortex was in trouble up ahead; his speed took him too fast into a backwards turn on the left and he twisted his fighter upwards, clipping the cliff edge and scraping to a halt in the dust of the sands above. Jonas banked his wings left and accelerated into the bend catching Spectrum as the leader pulled on his breaks. Menace and Goldheart were out of the race for first place and battling for third some way behind.

At full speed, on a straight run, the tops of the canyon walls fell lower and lower. Jonas and Spectrum skimmed above the river of the canyon floor, spraying water vapour into the sky with the thrust of their fighters. The canyon ahead split two ways, with a sharp rock sitting in the middle. Jonas took the left, Spectrum went right. Jonas could see Spectrum slipping behind through gaps in the rock. Jonas had taken his eye off the track for a moment too long. He looked up and turned into a tight right-hander. The belly of his dekapod scraped against the hairy moss of the canyon wall. Spectrum had chosen the fastest racing route losing no speed into the final right-hand bend. He shot out of the canyon above a gushing waterfall, stopping his timer on 01:04:30. Jonas flew out above the waterfall after him on a time of 01:05:15. And Menace came bursting out of the canyon into third, shortly followed by a disgruntled Goldheart.

Dog-Star's voice radioed into Jonas's comms system, "Good flying soldiers. Spectrum has five points, Jonas has three, Menace has one. Your auto-pilot will take you to the next test area."

The four fighters of silver, gold, blue and white sailed through the air flying side by side. The raging river below, spawned by the waterfall of Arasti, quickly lost its white-tipped rapids as it thinned out across a flat plane of arid land. Jonas rued a missed chance to take first place and a maximum five points. He told himself he had to do better in the next test; these guys didn't like him as it was. He needed to prove to them that he was worthy of their protection and that he was worthy of protecting them. Cortex came up beside the others, his confidence was as knocked as his fighter. The temptation was there for Jonas to say something smart to Cortex as he had done before the last test, but he decided against making things even harder for himself.

The robotic voice read out the instructions for the next test. "Test 2 Firepower," the robot said as the words appeared on Jonas's data-screen. "You must destroy as many given targets as you can in ninety seconds of flying over a virtual city. The targets will be highlighted. Use your cannons and missiles to destroy them. The more you destroy, the higher you score. Good luck."

A city as real as Enterra rose from the dirt of the desert in the distance. An intermittent buzzer sounded, a signal before the start of the test.

"I’ve got a really good feeling about this one," Jonas boasted, into everyone's radio.

"Just make sure you don’t get in my way!" Goldheart grumbled.

Jonas armed his laser cannons. "Last thing I’d want to do big guy," Jonas said. He was serious. No one ever wanted to get in Goldheart's way.

The buzzer stopped after one prolonged hum. Several enemy fighters materialised out of nowhere, flying towards them. Jonas's data-screen tracked them, outlining the targets in red. Before Jonas knew it, Goldheart had shot two of the fighters and the red disappeared from the data-screen. Menace, Cortex and Spectrum took out the remaining flashes of red fighters. More and more targets lit up on screen, buildings, factories, vehicles, gun-stations, soldiers and squadrons of enemy aircraft. Jonas aimed and fired but the others were so quick at manoeuvring and letting off their cannons and missiles that Jonas didn't stand a chance. His reflexes were surely quicker than theirs, he thought. The frustration played havoc with his concentration. Jonas dropped his fighter down into the city, flying low in-between buildings, taking out individual red-tagged infantry and gun stations while the others concentrated on the enemy fighters and munitions factories. With the more targets they destroyed, the scores in the bottom-left of their data-screens rolled higher and higher. Jonas pulled up, locking a missile on an enemy fighter and firing to take him down. He was learning how fast he had to be to beat the others to the shot. His score began to climb and the city disappeared before his eyes.

The final scores flashed up on their screens.

Goldheart = 30,415 points

Cortex = 29,320 points

Menace = 28,450 points

Spectrum = 27,730 points

Jonas = 15,005 points

Dog-Star's voice came in. "That's not good enough, Jonas," he said with a harshness in his throat. "Goldheart and Spectrum on five, Lucas and Jonas on three, Menace in last on two points."

Cortex smirked to himself, his smiling eyes hidden behind his mask, "How are those crumby junior suits looking Menace?" he teased.

"Better than your fighter, Lucas," she said, putting a dampener on his witty remark.

Dog-Star broke up any further argument, speaking over the both of them, "All right, it's not over yet. One challenge remains."

Jonas had to win this one. He revved himself up, ready to face whatever came next.

"Test 3" flashed up as a boxy wire-frame graphic of an enemy fighter modelled itself, rotating on Jonas's screen. The robotic voice read the next game aloud, "Test 3 Unity… You are in combat with twenty highly trained shadow-walkers. You must work together to limit your casualties and take down as many fighters as you can. Good luck."

A radar circle appeared on Jonas's data-screen. Spectrum took the group into attack, leading with a spearhead, two dekapods on each wing. He stared into the distance, keeping an eye on the sweeping line of the radar dial. A fleet of enemy fighters flashed up as red dots, moving fast.

"Twenty shadow-walkers coming in fast. I’ll take the lead, two on each wing, stagger formation," Spectrum commanded, keeping instruction clear and concise.

Jonas, Menace, Goldheart and Cortex staggered their positions as instructed, one higher and one lower than Spectrum, two on each side.

Spectrum watched the enemy fighters positioning, "Fire when they’re close. Break left and accelerate hard right—right in behind them. Follow me closely," he briefed.

The shadow-walkers came into sight, speeding closer. Cannon fire lit up the sky from both sides with spurts of laser flying past the fighters. The protectors banked left, following Spectrum's order. Jonas peeled off vertically, high and right. The enemy fighters split into two groups of ten, one group followed Jonas as the protectors roared in behind the other. Jonas pulled a high gravity loop, twisting round and coming in behind his enemy.

"Jonas damn it, stick with us!" Spectrum commanded.

"I'll be fine," Jonas told him, unleashing his cannons and smoking three shadow-walkers out of the sky. He screamed with victory. This game was his for the taking, if he could win the five points then he would at worse be joint top with Goldheart or Spectrum.

Spectrum pressed a button on top of his joystick. A red marker floated around the screen following the enemy fighter in front of him, "Lock missiles," Spectrum said,

"Locking missiles," the protectors replied.

"Fire!" ordered Spectrum.

Two missiles streamed out of each dekapod towards the sporadic flying of enemy fighters ahead. The missiles locked onto their targets, gliding up and down until they exploded into the rear of eight shadow-walkers. The protectors flew through the sedimentary remains of the enemy fighters, chasing on after the remaining two.

Jonas yo-yo'd up and down through the sky, terrorizing the tails of seven fighters. He released his cannons into the central fighter of the pack, ripping its wing clean off.  The doomed enemy fighter flipped through the air colliding in an explosion with another. He fired all over the pack of five fighters sitting on the tip of his nose. He couldn't make a hit. Jonas pulled up high, twisting around and diving back down, coming in from above with the five shadow-walkers in his sights. They scattered, breaking off in all directions.

Menace and Cortex saw off the final two enemies they were chasing and the fight had turned from twenty, to five on five.

Two enemy fighters came in behind the protectors. Spectrum commanded a split. The two shadows stayed on the tails of Goldheart and Cortex, firing streams of cannons too close to their fighters. They honed in on Goldheart, bullying him from behind. Cortex pushed on the brakes coming in behind the enemy. He blasted his cannons and another shadow-walker was down. The bogey in the middle of Cortex and Goldheart pulled up and out of the fight.